Why would two high schoolers go back on medical missions?

By Ruby Swanson

We came back to the grueling Third World.

Both Jamie Roman and I went on Lighthouse Medical Missions once before, though different countries. I went to Tanzania, she to Guatemala.

Right now, both of us – students of Santa Monica's Lighthouse Christian Academy – are here in Guatemala City, resting up from the red-eye flight, ready to head out early Sunday morning by bus on the winding
mountain road through lush rain forest to Coban, a five hour journey.

There, we're ready to roll up our sleeves and work, work, work. Yeah, Dr. Robert Hamilton's medical missions are not for the lazy. You help each doctor see 20 patients a day. We volunteers scribble down prescriptions or dispense meds that were previously packed painstakingly in prescription-sized little ziploc bags. Or we escort
patients from station to station, we translate, we man the reading glasses table.

It's weary work but never dreary work.

That's because you feel God on these missions. Whether you believe in God or not, it's hard not to feel the enrapturing goodness of helping fellow human beings who weren't so fortunate to be born in the United States.

Going on medical missions put my life in perspective.

Last year's trip to Tanzania was a huge reality check for me. I learned how completely selfish and ungrateful I could be, and how much went unappreciated by me back in America. I now try to be the opposite, which is hard because our flesh is very powerful. But Jesus has been helping me.

I also realized how big God was -- how He and His love could reach from America to Africa. That really had an impact on me. And also just seeing how we are all God's children. And how all any of us want is to be loved.

Jamie feels similarly.

“In trips like this, of course you gain appreciation for your country and your life back home,” she told me. “But I gained more than just that. My relationship with God grew."

Yeah, something is going to grow in you if you dare to break out of the routine of daily Starbucks, complaining about Santa Monica traffic and coming home to a perfect house. It could be your maturity.

The funny thing about these trips is this: we volunteers are supposed to bless the people in the Third World. And that happens! Each week-long clinic dishes out free medicines to up to 2,000 people. But after helping others, we realize we helped ourselves even more.

I gained so much from that trip and I am forever grateful to Dr.Bob for giving me such a great opportunity to participate. This time I don't have the same intimidation that I did last time because I know the drill. In Tanzania, I was initially overcome by a sense of inadequacy.

Back then, I was nervous because I had never been so far away from home before, and I did not speak the native language. I was the youngest person on the team, and had no medical experience. The anxiety was at first debilitating. But later I felt like God helped me and the team members were patient with me, so I got the swing of things.

I guess Jamie didn't feel overwhelmed last year. She said she just loved every minute of it.

“Triage was my favorite part, I got to meet all these people and see all these cute babies,” she said. “And joking with the patients was fun, I always loved to see their smile!"

You start to feel such closeness with the other team members. If there's a difficulty in the trip (like one year Ebola broke out close to where our team was), you go through the trial together. You have a wonderful support group. These are intelligent and caring people.

It's inspiring. Last year I really enjoyed working at the nurses' station. That's where nurses clean and bandage open sores. They do injections. They make kids cry and then soothe them afterwards. Everybody at the station really understood each other and we all worked in such great unison, we also got to learn about each other and by the end of the trip we were all very close.

I got so thrilled with the work that I actually decided to pursue a career in nursing.

So you could say that Lighthouse Medical Missions has impacted my life.

They say these medical clinics are for the suffering people around the world. But I think they're for us volunteers too.

Pictured: A friend from Pali High (left), Jamie Roman (center) and Ruby Swanson (right).